NASA has released a series of photos of Apollo moon-landing sites that are dramatically improved over previous photos taken as recently as 2009.
The photos were taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which was launched on June 18, 2009 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, along with the Lunar Crater …

Radiation

Is the one reason we have not gone beyond leo for prolonged periods. All of the Apollo astronauts reported light flashes (caused by radiation striking the retina) the ISS is low enough to be shielded by the Earth's magnetic field, go any higher and the radiation becomes a major problem.

Sorry - shuttles?

They have gone on the 'done' pile as well.

When I was a young'un I was bought up to expect moon hotels and settlements, flying cars and all sorts of other stuff worth growing up for - now it seems that the only thing (other) people have to look forward to is a good episode of Coronation Street.

Not so simple

Nah, everyone knows this is just more conspiracy evidence

They never got the moon, except to deposit the fake evidence. The whole thing was filmed by NASA, but to get the kinetics to look right, they had to use their secret facility on the lower slopes of Olympus Mons.

But everyone knows...

That Olympus Mons is the overt side of Majestic - who are really working from the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, having stolen the space ship tech that the Germans were developing during WW2.

oh - and I forgot that the Illuminati, together with the Milk Marketing board, are making corn-circle making alien ships (hiding inside the hollow Earth) to distract people from their efforts to control the planet.

says:

Pfft, who needs a soundstage....

when you have Photoshop!!

Personally, I think the money for the alledged Apollo program went to buy the silence of the Kennedy/MLK assassins and pay to break up the Beatles (Yoko was a honeytrap!!) and instigate right-wing coups across Latin America.

Holy shi*!

suspicious... very suspicious...

i see the wheel tracks of the LRV, going towards it's final resting place... but there's no footprints returning to the landing site?? is the astronaut still sitting in the driving seat? or maybe, they forgot to photoshop in the footprint tracks

Holy moondust, Robin

The man has a point. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but can anyone explain this? Why are there no footsteps back from the LRV final parking spot? Or did they just put it in 'Drive' and send it off on it's own at the end of the mission?

With a bit of logical thinking...

The main astronaut footprints you see are going to and from the various ALSEP packages dotted over the place. It would be a good assumption that the astonauts went to and from these several times, getting them there, plugging them in etc. The followed the same route enough times to wear a visible path in the dust.

It's therefore a good assumption the they only walked from where they parked the moon buggy to the lander only once, therefore not enough times to wear a visible path in the dust.

Cernan's walk back to the LM from the LRV

If you look at the lunar surface video (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/video17.html#closeout3), particularly from 170:24:16 onwards, you can see that Cernan walks (in terms of the NASA photo on the Reg page) away from the LM and rover to the right, and then up and around, towards the LM. His tracks are as likely as not part of the whole set of tracks (rover and human) that can be seen running horizontally across to the LM.

tracks

"i see the wheel tracks of the LRV, going towards it's final resting place... but there's no footprints returning to the landing site?? is the astronaut still sitting in the driving seat? or maybe, they forgot to photoshop in the footprint tracks"

Perhaps the driver walked back in the wheel tracks, like you'd do if you were walking in deep snow.

The 17 shot threw me for a while

Carefully parked

Right...the hope was that someone would return to the moon and make further use of the lunar rovers--so they were parked far enough away to prevent their being hammered by the ascent-stage exhaust. For many years afterward, the rover prototypes on display back here on Earth had signs attached explaining that anyone who got to the moon should feel free to use them, and had instructions for contacting NASA to obtain replacement battery specs--it was anticipated that the original cells wouldn't last all that long. Some years ago the signs disappeared. Possibly it was felt that by then they would have sustained enough damage from direct sunlight, radiation and micrometeorite hits as to no longer be serviceable.

Surveror pictures

Apollo 12 did more than take pictures of the Surveyor spacecraft. They actually took a piece of it back with them (the camera, I believe). There was a rumor that cockroaches survived the round trip, but that isn't true.

Then again it is all a conspiracy, so it doesn't matter, even though I was involved in bouncing signals from the surface in a couple of missions.

When do we go back? It has been a few years! Has the place changed? Is it under new management? Did they add any new buildings? Any new drinks at the bar?

Not another *stellar* object...

...that'd be a bit warm. But we have left footprints on an extraterrestrial object. And I agree, we should be ashamed as a race for the failure to follow up.

I wish the US would stop spending it's remaining money on stupid pointless shit, like "bringing freedom" to people who just want to stop getting shot at and for Americans to fuck off back to their own country. (Really, who outside America itself DOESN'T want Americans to fuck off back to America?)

And it'd be nice for the rest of the Western world to step up and and make a credible attempt at a manned space program of their own rather than standing back and letting the US bugger it up like this. Russia did it to a degree, China's doing it, India's doing it - what the hell's wrong with the rest of us?

I for one

The "developed" world has to find something and somewhere to expand into, otherwise it will slip into the "third world" category.

We don't produce things anymore - the "developing" world does that.

We are not needed to design anything - things required for day to day life have already been designed and can always be improved by the same "developing" world without our help.

The financial services only matter when you have finances.

So, in the past, in situations like this there was always the conquest, colonisation and empire building option. Or, at the very least, one could go to war against a rival empire with the hope for a good plunder. Neither of these are viable options anymore.

Really, more and more we are being pushed to do something bold like building a mine on an asteroid or Al smelter on the Moon (or fade away).

BTW: That will also take care of the aimless yoof who will suddenly see better things to do than stealing a few ipads from a local electronics shop...

Astronaut footpath?

Why I Love NASA

Timing. It’s all about the timing. They release these images just as that new documentary about Apollo 18 comes out and just prior to the 9/11 anniversary. I think they’re about to launch a Mars mission powered entirely by the impending conspiracy nut hot air outburst.

MItchell & Webb summed the conspiracy up pretty well...

Why are historical 'deniers' given so much credibility?

Moon mission deniers have a similar effect as other historical deniers. We should use the effect to channel next steps, not simply hold an argument clinic with them every time they dust off this approach.

I think that the Shuttle was exactly the WRONG thing to do after Apollo. Hopefully the dual development of commercial LEO with much-too-long-deferred NASA deepspace tech is a hopeful trend for the future.

"Clearly shows...."

@matt One always wants the perigee with good lighting...

I am not sure about Keller's reference, but Galileo had a similar objective. Its elliptical orbit was rated to have its closest point when sunlight was greatest. That would give you close-up shots all over the moon, not shots of only one area on the moon. This probe isn't just-doing Apollo landing shots, it is surveying the whole lunar surface...